Re: job shop auctions

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., Area51tats@a... wrote:

> The only problem with a shop bidding on something that you want made is that
> you may ask 5 shops to bid on a job and only one of them is gonna get the job
> and the other 4 shops have to eat the money they put into figuring out what
> it was gonna cost. The shop I work at has finally got tired of it and now we
> charge a minimum of $10 to tell you how much something might cost. And we
> really only do that with a couple of companys that have there own shop but
> ask us to quote a job and then they charge there customer what we quoted the
> job at and do the job themselfs.
>

My feeling is that there is more than one problem with the quote process.

1)The person placing the item out to bid has no idea how much it will cost. Which is kinda why they are placing it to bid in the first place. If it costs 5 cents a part, it might be worth doing. If it costs 5 bucks a part, it might not.

The solution: when you want a ROUGH estimate to determine if its economically feasible, make sure you ask for a ROUGH estimate. Not a quote.

2) Sending something to 5 shops for bidding causes them all to put work into it, and get nothing out of it.

Solutions:
Shops could charge fees for quotes which involve a great deal of work to calculate. This works by the basic laws of economics, shops that need the work are unlikely to charge fees. Shops that don't will. It helps to balance out the workload.

The inventor could give a project to a single shop and promise not to go to another job.

3) Shops could sit on bids for weeks, especially bad if the inventor only goes to one shop.

Solution: If your only going to one shop, tell them they have X weeks to deliver a bid after which point you will open up the bidding to other shops.

4) Shops can steal an inventors ideas

solution: Document, document documet. Notarisation. Etc.

5) The price per piece for 1 item is much different than the price per piece for 100

Solution: split your bid into an initial setup fee, a job setup fee, and than price per part for the quantity desired. This way the customer knows
1) If he changes the quantity, the setup fees remain the same
2) If he orders a small quantity and comes back later, the initial setup fee is already paid for so he only has to pay a job setup fee + quantity

6) Cherry picking. A request for a bid on multiple related pieces. Some shops may be tempted to quote lower rates on some of the less expensive items in order to get the job for the more expensive items. Customers than may be tempted to farm out only portions of the job, choosing the best price for each piece.

Solution: Always word your bids as a complete job, don't get down to the details. If he wants details, than give him the cost for particular parts as if you were doing them by themselves and explain the difference.